


Extra bits of Crossing the Nevsky Prospekt

by vampyrekat



Series: Crossing the Nevsky Prospekt [2]
Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, Glenya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-11-22 12:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11380170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampyrekat/pseuds/vampyrekat
Summary: Bits and pieces that didn't make it into the main fic.





	1. Chapter 1

The deposed royalty who frequented the Neva Club disgusted Gleb. He had made his way to Paris  and visited the Neva Club to see what their chances were. Waiting outside in the cold and the rain and the dark as the former-royals danced inside reminded him of the Russia of his youth, the way the royals had thrown parties with the money stolen from the people they were supposed to protect while those people starved in the gutter outside.

“They won’t like you loitering,” the doorman warned. “If you go around back, they’ll give you something to eat -”

“I’m not hungry,” Gleb replied shortly.

“Don’t be so proud, comrade,” the doorman said, and the mocking lilt of ‘comrade’ sent Gleb over the edge.

“I’d rather starve than eat their scraps! They make me ashamed to be Russian.” Perhaps he’d said too much, but he was angry - so angry - and  so frustrated that there was nothing to do but wait for Anya to appear. “They used to be have power, and _we_ changed that. And now, look at them!” He gestured to the lit windows. “It’s so pathetic. The men in their medals, the women in their furs; they learned _nothing_ from the revolution. The only consolation is that _we_ don’t have to deal with it anymore, but I can see that some people are happy to do that.” The doorman frowned. “If they want to live in the past, then that’s their problem. You shouldn’t be dragged along with them, comrade.” He’d stormed away, still angry.

Three days later, he was back. The con men had reached Paris, Anya with them, and they were going to be at the Neva Club to find the Dowager Empress , if what the fake Count had said was accurate. He’d nearly missed them; he’d caught them shopping for suits on their second day in Paris, and managed to stay near enough to hear what they said. Gleb didn’t know if the Dowager would be at the Neva Club, but if they were going to try, he had to be there. He needed to speak to Anya alone before she got herself into something there was no coming back from.

So he’d gotten himself a suit, and stolen one of the uniforms the staff at the Club wore. The uniform was quickly discarded after he slipped in, and the mask he’d brought allowed him to blend with the royals. He had managed to get by with only the politest of comments and a look that suggested that he had very urgent business on the other side of the room, and he was waiting, patiently. He saw the trio enter the room, saw the false Count Popov link Anya and Dmitry’s hands as he set off, likely in search of his Lily. Gleb knew he should probably follow Popov and end the threat that way but - Anya was here. He’d be lying if he said the con men mattered to him at all; two con men escaping Russia wasn’t troubling.

Anya wore a white mask that didn’t hide much of her face at all, and she was laughing at Dmitry as he - admittedly poorly - waltzed her around the room. And then she curtsied to him and was in the arms of another royal, and Gleb realized he’d been staring a little too long and resumed stalking around the room. He noticed - how could he not? - when she stumbled violently back against the wall, pressing her hands against her head. He moved as if to - catch her? comfort her? - but she stood and started walking towards the floor as the music began again.

He caught her arm on instinct as she passed, twirling her back into his embrace as the music began in earnest. She danced like someone who’d been born into it, moving with grace even as she tried to struggle away.

“I’m sorry, I’m looking for my friend.”

“Always in a hurry,” he said lightly, trying for humor and probably ending up somewhere around mocking. She stumbled and Gleb tensed, half-carrying her through the remainder of the turn. There was _fear_ in her eyes when she looked up, and there was no smiles for him, not today and quite probably never again. His heart felt like stone in his chest.

“Gleb,” she said, voice low, and he felt like she’d stabbed him.

“I wasn’t expecting to meet a street sweeper in a club of deposed Russian royalty,” he said conversationally, and felt Anya grow even more tense in his arms as they danced. “Paris is no place for a good and _loyal_ Russian.”

Her jaw tightened and she stared at him defiantly. “And yet we are _both_ in Paris.”

“I was sent here, Anya. I think you know why.” He held her closer as they spun together, the rest of the world blurring. She fit into his arms too well, and if Gleb didn’t have a mission, he would find it all too easy to fall into those hauntingly blue eyes and forget the rest of the world.

“I saw you the night we jumped from the train,” she said neutrally, her posture so heartbreakingly regal. He remembered her throwing herself from the train with a frightening vividness and his hand tightened on hers convulsively. She was watching him carefully as she added, “You didn’t draw a weapon.”

He felt his stride falter. “And risk you falling?” He laughed, but it sounded forced even to him. “My orders are to bring the false Anastasia back.” He wouldn’t even entertain the idea that she was really what she pretended to be, because if she was -

“And the real Anastasia?” she asked. Gleb gritted his teeth, ignoring the question and starting a more complicated figure, giving him the excuse to look away from her penetrating gaze. She didn’t look away from his face, and he knew, even with the mask, she could read what he was thinking: he had a gun beneath his vest and he should use it, because if she was Anastasia, she could destroy everything he’d ever worked for. He took several deep breaths, and when the movement ended, he smiled at her.

“You look beautiful, Anya.” He wasn’t lying; as a street sweeper, she’d had an effortless beauty that was unmarred by the grime. Here, in a simple dress with a simple mask, she might as well have descended from heaven. She smiled, and his heart beat in his throat. _Like sunshine_ , he thought wildly.

“I’ve never seen you out of uniform,” she replied, noncommittally. “How did you talk your way in?”

He laughed, too sharply, and spun her within the circle of his right arm to cover it. She didn’t need to know. “Royalty is not hard to fool,” he almost-answered. Her blue eyes were almost mocking.

“I recognized you.”

“ _You_ are not like them,” he said, too intensely, and clutched her closer. Anya gasped softly but didn’t look away as he continued, “You _worked_ for what you have. You didn’t steal it from the people - people like _us_ , Anya.”

Perhaps that was why he refused to see her as Anastasia, he thought bitterly as they stopped spinning. Not only would that mean he had to kill her, it would mean the Romanovs had been no different from the rest of them, that their evil had been situational, that his father had been right to be haunted by the execution of the children that day. If Anya was a Romanov brought up in the new order, then perhaps the Romanovs had not been beyond saving.

Anya was everything Gleb saw in the new Russia; she _could not_ be the product of the old.

“You don’t belong here, Anya.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, after a pause. Her voice was shaky and she took a moment after to compose herself before adding, “I can’t go back.”

“No,” Gleb agreed quietly. “But still …”They’d stopped dancing a while ago, but they were in a corner and no one was watching. He dropped the dance hold and moved to brush her hair from her face, to pull her mask off, to do something, but instead his hands fell to cradle her face. “There’s other options, Anya.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, helplessly, and Gleb stroked her cheek lightly. She shivered and he knew, deep inside, that he shouldn’t be touching her, shouldn’t be this close. He didn’t deserve to have any of this, when he was going to have to complete his mission and go back to Leningrad with no smiling street sweeper to look out for, because she’d be - he didn’t finish the thought, focused on the feeling of her skin beneath his fingertips. Russia would seem so much colder without her in it.

“You’re shaking,” he pointed out - why was she always shivering when they met? - but he didn’t stop, stroking her jawline gently. If he was already going to hell for stealing this moment, he was going to stretch it out as long as he could. And - a half-baked plan was taking root in his mind. “You have more options than you think. To throw it all away on a gamble, that you _might_ be the woman your con men taught you to be -”

“To be who I am, Gleb. I am the Grand Duchess Anastasia. I remember it.”

Gleb felt the surge of anger and fought it down. “You _think_ you remember. Your con men taught you to remember.” Her eyes pressed shut and her hand came up to cover his. He stroked his thumb along her cheek. “I can’t go back to Leningrad without you, one way or another.”

Her eyes snapped open and she yanked his hand away from her face, and he let his other hand fall to her shoulder. “That is not my problem. I can’t go back to Leningrad.”

“You can’t.” He sighed and squeezed her hand, still holding his, and prayed she’d understand. “I don’t _want_ to go back to Leningrad with you.”

Anya froze.

“You -” She started, then narrowed her eyes at him. Gleb could feel his smile slipping from encouraging into self-loathing. He couldn’t simply _ask_ her, and if she didn’t understand him, he’d be left with nothing but a weapon and the remnants of his hopes. “You love Russia,” she said finally.

“I do,” he said simply. He did love Russia, after all. But Anya’s presence wiped away all his desire to improve their homeland, all his resolve to sacrifice for the greater good. His jaw tightened and he let go of her entirely; it was now or never. “I wasn’t lying. You have other options, Anya.”

It wasn’t betraying his country if he could convince her not to go to the Dowager Empress. Running away would be a betrayal, but he could live with it; it would still serve the greater good, keep Anastasia dead where she belonged. If Deputy Commissioner Vaganov died with her, then that was simply collateral.

She was like a statute before him, her eyes flickering between his, and he was certain for one dizzying moment that she was _considering_ it. That this could be ended without bloodshed, without further suffering -

“Anya!” The boy - Dmitry - had found them, and the moment was ruined. Anya turned to face him as he rattled on, “Vlad’s looking for you. He said the Dowager never comes here, but the ballet next week -” His eyes finally landed on Gleb, and something must have seemed familiar, because he hesitated. “Who’s this?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Anya said coolly. “Let’s go, Dmitry.”

She moved to link her arm through Dmitry’s and Gleb reached out unthinkingly to wrap his hand around her wrist, drawing her up short.

“Anya -”

“Let go,” she said, the full weight of Anastasia’s royalty in her voice. Gleb jerked back as though he’d been burned. She walked away with her con man, and Gleb pressed a hand into his closed eyes. It was over, then, for him. He had said his bit and she had thrown it back in his face, and unknowingly signed her own death warrant.

“Are you alright, sir?” One of the royals asked, and Gleb’s breath hissed out from between his clenched teeth.

“Fine. Thank you.” He stiffened as the man moved off, felt his body mold itself into the officer he’d been for so long. Anya could not be allowed to become Anastasia. The truth did not matter; his father hadn’t hesitated, and neither would he.

Failure was not an option.


	2. Chapter 9, Anya's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was in a cellar in Yekaterinburg; she was in a room in Paris. She was facing down the bullets with her sisters and she was facing down the bullet so painfully, clearly alone that it hurt.

“Gleb,” Anya said. She’d known deep down that Gleb wouldn’t just vanish, but she’d forgotten him entirely as she sorted through her thoughts - thoughts which had flown from her head in a panic the second he walked in.

“Always in a hurry, and I always let you go.” He sounded conversational, almost apologetic. It reminded her of the way he’d spoken to her at the Neva Club, except that this time, there was no music to end and no one to interrupt. “But not this time,” he continued, straightening up and tugging his suit jacket the same way he’d adjusted his military uniform. “I’ve come to take you home.” Anya straightened up in turn, her posture as regal as she could manage, and tried to catch his gaze.

“My home is here now,” she informed him firmly, and tried to sweep toward the door the way her grandmother had not too long before. Gleb caught her arm in a moment, yanking her back towards him and grabbing her upper arms to force her to face him. Anya glanced up, closer than they’d been even during the dance and felt _fear_ , despite the pleading in his eyes.

“Stop playing this game, Anya,” he begged, and she tried to breathe evenly.

“We both know it’s not a game, Gleb.” Her voice had wavered; how could it not? She’d jumped from a train and faced down the former Empress of Russia and had been tempted by Gleb and she’d pushed through to this point and he called it a _game -_ she planted her hands on his chest and pushed, stumbling back. Gleb let her go, but he was watching her closely.

“I told you the last time we met; Paris is no place for a good and _loyal_ Russian.”

Anya was so tired of trying to figure him out. If Gleb wanted to stop her from taking her place as Anastasia, then he’d had ample time during their last meeting, which made his pleading and arguing now pointless. Surely he hadn’t made the same mistake as their last meeting; surely he was armed. There was no reason _not_ to shoot the Grand Duchess, genuine or not - not unless he didn’t _want_ to shoot her. If she was Anastasia, he couldn’t want anything else. It was a dizzying whirlwind of identity and history and Anya was barely sure of who she was, let alone who Gleb Vaganov was. But she wasn’t responsible for him.

“And yet we’re both in Paris, comrade,” she said coolly. Gleb’s eyes swept over her, and he grimaced.

“If you are Anastasia,” he challenged, “do you think _history_ wants you to have lived?”

“ _Yes!_ ” She stepped closer, tried to be strong and not afraid the way her grandmother had taught her to be. The way her mother and father had been, before they were shot, and Anastasia alone had survived, surely that meant something. “Why don’t _you?_ ”

Gleb moved closer as well, and despite the near foot of height he had over her Anya wasn’t afraid any more, even when he gestured to her finery and jewels. “The Romanovs were given everything, and gave back _nothing_ \- until the Russian people rose up to _destroy_ them!”

“All but one,” she corrected, taking a step back and spreading her arms. Gleb reeled back as though she’d slapped him, his eyes wide. Anya almost smiled. “I am my father’s daughter.”

“And I am my father’s son!” he shouted, pulling out the pistol, not yet pointed at her. It might as well have been; her breath caught and all Anya could see was the smooth metal of the weapon, the glint of the light on it as Gleb stumbled back against the far wall, and she was back in that cellar, watching her father shield her brother with his own body. Anastasia had stood with her sisters - one part of four, until the end, with four matching faces of shock and horror as their father’s blood sprayed across Alexei’s face -

“In me, you see them,” she hissed. “Look at their faces in mine - hear their screams, see their _terror!_ ”

Gleb thought he knew what had happened in that cellar; he had no idea. No one who hadn’t been there could ever understand what it was like, the hail of bullets that had ricocheted off the diamonds in their undershirts and off the stone wall; smoke had filled the room and the men kept firing from the doorway as her sisters fell around her. They had told them that the royal family needed to be moved, for their own protection. They had finished off the girls with rifle butts and bayonets and Anya remembered suddenly where the wounds on her head had come from, all those years ago. And now there was an officer facing her, his gun drawn, and she only hoped he did her the service of looking her in the eyes and making it quick.

Anya had been here before. Gleb had not.

“The Romanovs died that night,” he said sharply, like he was going to convince himself. “My father was a guard; my father obeyed his orders. There are no Romanovs left!”

“I survived that night,” she said firmly, and the world sharpened. The ghosts of her family crowded around her - the ghosts of her sisters held her arms and her brother hid behind her skirts and yet - and yet it was simply her and Gleb in this isolated bubble of Paris, a thousand miles and ten years away from that night. “Do this,” she said, pressing a hand to her head to quiet the nightmares that threatened to come back, “and I will be back in that cellar in Yekaterinburg all over again!”

“Orders must be _obeyed_ ,” he insisted, and Anya saw red. For one electrifying moment she wished she could grab Gleb Vaganov and _show_ him what had happened, what his father had done to her father, what people like him had done to her, to her sisters and her brother and all because they had the audacity to be born with the name Romanov.

“My parents, my brother, my sisters - all taken from me by men following _orders!_ ”

“We do what we must,” he said firmly, but there was a hesitance to his voice that made her heart stop, “whether it is to write, to sweep, to - to obey our orders, we do what we must, Anya, without regards to _happiness_ -”

She was in a cellar in Yekaterinburg; she was in a room in Paris. She was facing down the bullets with her sisters and she was facing down the bullet so painfully, clearly alone that it hurt. He didn’t want to shoot her, but he was going to convince himself otherwise. _Happiness_ \- he’d have his happiness if he shot her, another promotion and the chance to fight for the Russia he loved, the Russia that killed the Romanovs.

The Russia that would kill her.

Gleb stepped forward and brought the pistol up, aimed it between her eyes.

“For the last time, who are you?”

She could have lied; he was waiting for an excuse to let her leave. But it was better to be shot for telling the truth than to live a lie, after what she’d gone through to know the answer to the simple question ‘who are you?’

“I am,” she said, too loud in the small room, squaring her shoulders and presenting a neat target, “the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov.”

“Then I have _no choice_ ,” he said, and Anya watched him with a curious detachment. She might be with her family in a matter of seconds; her eyes seemed to catch every detail of this scene. Gleb Vaganov looked like an entirely different person. She’d thought she’d seen past his uniform before, but he’d never been so entirely divorced from the Deputy Commissioner as he was now, in plainclothes and aiming a gun and trembling. A pity he couldn’t have been someone else in the new Russia, a pity he was one of the people who carried out the murders ordered by the state.

“I can’t.”

Those murders had killed her Russia along with her family. There was nothing for her in her home country now.

“I can’t,” Gleb repeated, falling to his knees with a choked sob. The gun clattered to the ground and he jerked his hand back like he’d been burned by the cold metal, drawing shuddering breaths.

Perhaps there was nothing for _him_ in their home country too.

Silence reigned in the room for a long moment, and then Anya stepped towards Gleb with the measured gait she’d seen her mother perfect. His eyes went to the gun, then to her, and then he closed his eyes and tipped his head back, waiting for her to do what he couldn't.

“I mean you no harm, Gleb,” she said softly, and reached out to brush the hair back from his face. Gleb flinched, then reached up and caught her hand, holding it to his cheek, and Anya’s breath caught as his eyes met hers. He wasn’t going to shoot her, not after this.

“I believe you _are_ Anastasia,” he said, and it sounded confessional, the way she’d always confessed her sins, “and I believe history will damn me for not pulling the trigger as surely as if I had.”

He sounded broken and Anya wasn’t sure how to bridge the gulf. They weren’t princess and executioner, not anymore; they weren’t friends. For a hysterical moment, she considered offering him tea, as though they could erase the past and start over again. What would he do, now that he’d failed to kill her? The Bolsheviks were not kind to those who failed them.

And despite it all, _he hadn’t pulled the trigger_.

She reached out to run her hand through his hair again, and he shivered under her touch. She thought, wildly, of how he'd seen her that first time - shivering in the snow because of a truck - and how far they'd both come, and she would've laughed if it wasn't all so deadly serious.

“You’re shaking,” she said, finally, and Gleb looked up at her in shock. “What will you tell them?”

“That I was not my father’s son after all,” he said simply. “That when the moment came, I was unfit.”

“They’ll shoot you,” she guessed, and he nodded.

“I know.”

He didn’t argue, and that made it so much worse. If he had argued - if he had fought her - she could’ve left him there and found her nana and eventually this would be one more bad dream in a string of bad dreams. But instead of arguing, Gleb was kneeling before her and Anya was suddenly aware that he was looking to _her_ for guidance, perhaps not as a Grand Duchess or as royalty but looking for her guidance all the same.

Her father had had the power to forgive people’s sins. She wondered what would it take to forgive Gleb’s.

“You have other options, Gleb.”

The words escaped before she truly considered them and Gleb grimaced to hear his words on her lips. Anya’s heart was racing again.

“What options but the one I’ve been given, _Anastasia?_ ” he hissed, and Anastasia sounded more foreign in his voice than ‘Anya’ ever had.

“The Grand Duchess Anastasia,” she announced, “is dead. She was killed ten years ago.” Anya sank to her knees next to Gleb, her hand still on his cheek. “I have a grandmother; I have a name. I’m not the woman who was led into that cellar, and I’ve realized I never will be.” She shook her head; now was not the time to be caught in her memories. “I’m not going to the press conference. I’m going to speak to my grandmother, and then I’m going to board a train out of Paris.”

The plan had been in her head since the night before, but it had taken this moment to turn it from a hazy dream to a real plan. Going to talk to Dmitry had been a convenient escape, a way to put off taking on the mantle of Anastasia that she didn’t want anyway. She had wanted to escape. How foolish to have needed a reason to do what she wanted.

“If this is pity,” Gleb snarled quietly, “I don’t want it.”

“It’s not.” Anya smiled. “Come with me, Gleb.”

He froze entirely under her touch, his eyes widening. Anya stood, giving his hand a squeeze before brushing the dust off her skirts.

“Anya -” Gleb cut himself off, looking up at her with an indescribable emotion in his eyes.

“I’ll buy two tickets. I’ll be at the platform for the four o’clock train.” Anya reached out to him and Gleb caught her hand, pressed a kiss into the palm of her glove. It felt like a brand and Anya shivered, unsure how to take this or what he wanted - but she was past doing what others wanted anyway. “If you want to come with me, meet me there. If not -” She took a deep breath, gave him an out. “If not, I wish you long life, comrade.”

She squeezed his hand one last time and turned to go, her heart beating with the aftereffects of fear and excitement. She was going to leave Paris, with or without Gleb. Anya was going to have all the time she needed to decide who she wanted to be, and - if he came - so would Gleb Vaganov.

Anya smiled as she removed Anastasia’s tiara from her hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to message me on [tumblr](http://vampyrekatwrites.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
